In the Middle Ages medical assistance depended on the financial conditions of the communes. These in fact often worked as true “mutual health service”, and the “money” were drawn from the taxes that the citizens once gave the town treasurer. When it was possible, that is when the commune reached a certain financial level, they arranged  to pay a doctor that sometimes had to cure for free all the citizens and this was the origin of medical “practices”.

When a commune could pay a doctor, it usually paid also a school teacher. Education and medical assistance, were the first objectives to be reached by the town council, for the citizen’s welfare. The doctors at that time didn't have particular qualifications. The statutes of the city of Ivrea provided that the people who intended to do such a profession had to give proof of their own ability and competence and to take an oath into the hands of the Podestà. The doctors visited the patient and they suggested the treatment and, if it was necessary, they operated the patient or bled him. In that case a surgeon intervened (for the operations) or the barber (for the bleedings). Surgeons and barbers depended on the doctor and they were very little  esteemed because their work was manual. Medicines were prepared by the spice sellers that  had to comply with very strict rules.

Cleaning and public health were treated with great readiness. In open places, and if there was public, skinning animals wasn’t admitted. Nobody could throw water or other things from windows, balconies and lofts on the roads. Nobody could  keep goats in their house, but the podestà could allow the patients to keep one while they were ill. They had to be careful that straw and wood were not put in very inflammable places and moreover, to avoid the major danger of fire all straw roof  were spread with mud. Later, all house owners who didn’t want to change their straw roof for one of tiles, were punished with the demolition  of their house.

They took great care that in the towns, epidemics didn't get in. In fact the podestà had to look for any person infected from leprosy in Ivrea and to take them to isolated places. When there was a risk of epidemics, the population was warned and   people  were forbidden to enter the town from infected places. Also medicine was watched over by the communal authorities.